How Extra Attack Works in 5e
Extra Attack lets you make two attacks instead of one whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Paladins and Rangers get it at level 5; a Warlock gets it for a pact weapon through Thirsting Blade. Only Fighters go past two: three attacks at level 11, four at level 20. Two sources never stack. The feature works on your turn, through the Attack action, and nowhere else. Below: the rule quoted, who has it, what counts, and what the second swing does to a goblin and an ogre.
The rule
Every class that has it uses the same words:
You can attack twice instead of once whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
The Fighter's later features change only the count:
You can attack three times instead of once whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
You can attack four times instead of once whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Three limits sit inside that sentence.
- The Attack action. A spell with a casting time of an action uses the Magic action instead, so a turn spent casting one gets no Extra Attack.
- On your turn. An Opportunity Attack or a readied attack happens on someone else's turn, so it stays one attack. The Ready Action covers that trap.
- Attack, not hit. Each attack rolls separately. Miss the first, and the second still happens.
Who gets it
| Class | Level | Attacks |
|---|---|---|
| Barbarian | 5 | 2 |
| Fighter | 5 / 11 / 20 | 2 / 3 / 4 |
| Monk | 5 | 2 |
| Paladin | 5 | 2 |
| Ranger | 5 | 2 |
| Warlock (Thirsting Blade) | 5 | 2 (pact weapon) |
| Warlock (Devouring Blade) | 12 | 3 (pact weapon) |
The Warlock's invocation reads:
You gain the Extra Attack feature for your pact weapon only. With that feature, you can attack twice with the weapon instead of once when you take the Attack action on your turn.
Devouring Blade, at Warlock level 12, makes it "two extra attacks rather than one". Rogues, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards in the SRD never get the feature.
It never stacks
The multiclassing rules settle the common question:
If you gain the Extra Attack feature from more than one class, the features don't stack. You can't make more than two attacks with this feature unless you have a feature that says you can (such as the Fighter's Two Extra Attacks feature).
So a Fighter 5 / Paladin 5 attacks twice, not three times. The same passage covers the Warlock: Thirsting Blade "doesn't give you additional attacks if you also have Extra Attack." See Multiclassing for the rest of that chapter.
What each attack can be
The Attack action lets you make "one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike", and Extra Attack repeats that. Each of your attacks can be different:
- A different weapon. Hit with a Longsword, then throw a Dagger.
- An Unarmed Strike. That includes the Grapple and Shove options, which force a save instead of an attack roll. A level 5 Fighter can Shove a foe Prone with the first attack, then swing at it with Advantage on the second. Grappling and Shoving has the DCs.
- A new target. Each attack picks its own creature.
Two more rules apply. You can equip or unequip one weapon "when you make an attack as part of this action", so with two attacks you can draw two weapons. And you can move between them:
If you move on your turn and have a feature, such as Extra Attack, that gives you more than one attack as part of the Attack action, you can use some or all of that movement to move between those attacks.
Drop the goblin in front of you, walk 15 feet, attack the next one.
What the second swing is worth
A Fighter with Strength 18 (+4) and a Greatsword (2d6 + 4), attacking at +6 (level 4), +7 (5), +8 (11) and +10 (20). Two targets from the SRD: a Goblin Warrior (AC 15, 10 Hit Points) and an Ogre (AC 11, 68 Hit Points). One Attack action, crits included:
| Level | Attacks | Goblin damage | Goblins killed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | 6.95 | 0.45 |
| 5 | 2 | 15.00 | 0.99 |
| 11 | 3 | 24.15 | 1.63 |
| 20 | 4 | 36.60 | 2.50 |
"Goblins killed" assumes a line of goblins and moving on to a fresh one the moment the last falls. Level 5 more than doubles the damage: the extra attack and the +1 to hit arrive together.
Against the Ogre, average damage per Attack action and the chance to drop it by the end of a given round:
| Level | Damage | By round 3 | By round 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 9.15 | under 0.1% | 0.1% |
| 5 | 19.40 | 22.7% | 77.1% |
| 11 | 30.75 | 96.2% | over 99.9% |
| 20 | 43.20 | over 99.9% | over 99.9% |
A level 4 Fighter needs eight rounds for even odds on the Ogre. At level 5, four rounds does it three times in four; at level 20, two rounds does it 95.6% of the time.
Casters catch up the same level
Level 5 is when cantrips grow a second die. A Wizard with Intelligence 18 casting Fire Bolt (2d10, +7 to hit) deals 9.9 a turn to the Ogre, against 9.7 for one Greatsword swing. Extra Attack is how the Fighter keeps pace: 19.4 against 9.9. Cantrip Damage at Levels 5, 11 and 17 shows the caster's side.
Monster Multiattack is not Extra Attack
Stat blocks give monsters a Multiattack action instead, for example the Hobgoblin Warrior's:
The hobgoblin makes two attacks, using Greatsword or Longbow in any combination.
Multiattack is its own action with its own list. Rules that mention the Attack action or Extra Attack never apply to it. How to Read a Stat Block walks through the rest.
Every Extra Attack starts with a d20 against AC. The Book of Dice covers the d20 in Part I, The Object. Damage averages and kill odds here are computed exactly from the dice above.
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
